海底兩萬里 第215期 第16章 在海底平原散步(6)

Soon, scarcely blurred by their distance from us, the forms of some objects took shape before my eyes. I recognized the lower slopes of some magnificent rocks carpeted by the finest zoophyte specimens, and right off, I was struck by an effect unique to this medium.

走了一會兒，看見前面有些東西，雖然形象僅僅在遠(yuǎn)方微微露出，但輪廓已清楚地在我眼前浮現(xiàn)。我看出這是海底巖石前沿好看的一列，石上滿鋪著最美麗的形形色色的植蟲動物;我首先就被這種特有的景色怔住。

By then it was ten o'clock in the morning. The sun's rays hit the surface of the waves at a fairly oblique angle, decomposing by refraction as though passing through a prism; and when this light came in contact with flowers, rocks, buds, seashells, and polyps, the edges of these objects were shaded with all seven hues of the solar spectrum. This riot of rainbow tints was a wonder, a feast for the eyes: a genuine kaleidoscope of red, green, yellow, orange, violet, indigo, and blue; in short, the whole palette of a color-happy painter! If only I had been able to share with Conseil the intense sensations rising in my brain, competing with him in exclamations of wonderment! If only I had known, like Captain Nemo and his companion, how to exchange thoughts by means of prearranged signals! So, for lack of anything better, I talked to myself: I declaimed inside this copper box that topped my head, spending more air on empty words than was perhaps advisable.

這時是早晨十點。太陽光在相當(dāng)傾斜的角度下，投射在水波面上，光線由于曲折作用，像通過三梭鏡一樣被分解，海底的花、石、植物、介殼、珊瑚類動物，一接觸被分解的光線，在邊緣上顯現(xiàn)出太陽分光的七種不同顏色。這種所有濃淡顏色的錯綜交結(jié)，真正是一架紅、橙、黃、綠、青、藍(lán)、紫的彩色繽紛的萬花筒，總之，它就是十分講究的水彩畫家的一整套顏色!看來實在是神奇，實在是眼福!我怎樣才能把我心中所有的新奇感覺告訴康塞爾呢!怎樣才能跟他一齊發(fā)出贊嘆呢!我怎樣才能跟尼摩船長和他的同伴一樣，利用一種約定的記號來傳達(dá)我的思想呢!因為沒有更好的辦法，所以我只好自己對自己說話，在套著自己腦袋的銅盒子里面大聲叫喊;雖然我知道，說這些空話消耗的空氣恐怕比預(yù)定的要多些。